Amount of RAM optimal with M1 PRO MacBook Pro

[minimejdh]

I am looking at purchasing the new 14 inch MacBook Pro with M1 Pro chip.   I use Photoshop and Lightroom Classic.   I know the adobe website has recommendations but I don't know if they consider new Apple silicon.   Since you get only one shot at how much RAM in the computer I want to get my choice right and future proof.  Will I be safe with 16 GB?  Or should I go for 32 GB?  $400 more is pretty steep.   

Right now I may use iMovie concutprrently but not other intensive programs.  
Thanks.

[Conrad C]

I'm gonna disagree with both of the marked correct answers and say there are lots of Photoshop use cases where 64GB of unified memory is not a good value, especially after seeing how much less memory the early M1s needed for high performance compared to Intel Macs. You have to take into account how large your images are and how many applications you run at the same time. (I have a 32GB M1 Pro.)

Although maxing out is necessary for the low-end Macs because the limits are so low, some time ago the pro Macs passed the point where maxing out was a reasonable option for photographers. Today, the (very expensive) maximum configuration of Unified Memory, or storage, or CPU/GPU is designed not for photo editing, but for video and 3D editing. The max configuration is usually overkill for photo editing.

Maxing out a Mac today does not really make it last longer, especially if you maxed out only one spec. If you have to sell your Mac in 3 or 4 years because for example, the single core CPU performance is no longer adequate (remember, the M1 Pro/Max do not improve on the M1 in that area), but you maxed out to 8TB or SSD of 64GB memory that you never really needed, you threw out that money on the upgrades.

Also, maxing out a current Mac typically won’t make it useful longer than about 7 years, due to the limits placed on system and application upgrade eligibilty placed by both Apple and Adobe. There is a hard limit to “future proofing” that did not exist for earlier Macs, and no amount of additional money dumped into the Mac will future proof it any further.

If you have any kind of limit on your budget, configure to what you expect to need for about 5 to 7 years. I hav a strong feeling a lot of people who maxed out these first M1 Pro/M1 Max models are going to kick themselves in a few years when they realize they want the improvements in a later model (M2? No notch? HDMI 2.1?, FaceID?), but they sunk too much money unnecessarily maxing out the last one they bought.

I’m not saying never max out a Mac, because some need to, but you need to have a really good reason and maxing out should never be the default approach. 

[Lumigraphics]

Lots of current computers ship with 8GB of RAM and that's nowhere near enough today. However, I used to run Photoshop 4 on a PowerBook 5300cs with 24MB of RAM and it worked. System requirements change, and maxxing out RAM is a great idea for future-proofing if you can afford it. Since RAM can't be added later, don't cheap out. RAM is the first thing I would increase if I was buying a new M1 Mac.

[TheDigitalDog]

I remember running Photoshop 1.07 on 16MB of RAM (or was it 8MB; 1990 was so long ago). Mac IIci. Waiting five minutes to rotate a 15MB image two degrees; ah the good old days.

Yes that's megabytes of RAM.

A year or so later, that 1 thousand megabyte array (2 500MB HDs) really sped up the scratch disk. 

[josephlavine]

This decision is based on your personal needs. The more applications you simultaneously run and the larger the files (or videos), the more RAM is required. I found a balance of 32 works well for my photographic needs on my M1 laptop, but my iMac runs 128.

warmly/j